Lando Norris Teaming Up with Max Verstappen
The 23 year old McLaren driver Lando Norris is rumored to sign for Red Bull, after his current contract comes to an end in 2025. He would have to take on the difficult challenge of racing alongside the two time world champion, Max Verstappen.
In the last few weeks there have been a lot of interviews, not only with the British driver but also with many officials from Red Bull, including team principal Christian Horner and Helmut Marko.
Who is Lando Norris?
Norris started his racing career at the early age of seven. Back then he used to be a talented karting driver and competed in national and later in international karting events. In 2014 he even achieved to become the youngest karting world champion. Later on he started his three year long journey of competing in various formula series, reaching from formula 4 to formula 2, with the goal of one day driving in the pinnacle of motorsport, Formula One. He accomplished this goal in 2019 when he headed for his rookie season together with Goerge Russel and Alex Albon. He signed for McLaren and has been loyal to that team ever since.
A lot of the drivers racing in F1 have raced together in karting events and competed for championships in lower formula classes. So did Lando Norris and Max Verstappen. They first met each other in 2013 when Lando used to race in the junior class and Max dominated the seniors. There even is a picture of them standing side by side and smiling into the camera. The story behind said picture is rather interesting, as Lando Norris states that he “probably used Verstappen’s name to get more likes on his Instagram post” as Max Verstappen won an impressive amount of races during that season.
Although the two of them never raced against each other until Formula One, they became close friends over the years. Lando believes that this is the result of growing up together in a similar generation and similar time.
Why would a position open up at Red Bull?
Even though Checo currently sits at second place with 224 points, his season so far has been anything but constant. In addition to that, his performance has been nowhere near to Max Verstappen, who already scored 433 points.
At the beginning of this season Red Bull fans had high hopes for an in-team battle as well as a tough competition between the two drivers. The first few races certainly looked promising as Sergio Perez managed to win two out of the first five races of the 2023 season. Shortly after tha his form has dipped tremendously. His bad form made it seem as though he wasn’t driving the dominating RB19, certainly not the same dominating car Max Verstappen has just won his third consecutive championship with.
The Red Bull advisor Helmut Marko stated in past interviews that the seat of Sergio Perez is in great jeopardy. He also suggested that Checos future lies elsewhere.
These statements were made just two weeks after the senior advisor called him “South American” and claimed that his inconsistent performance was related to his ethnicity.
The Mexican driver’s contract runs out at the end of next season, but the team is not shy to throw drivers out of their seat mid-season as they just recently proved by firing rookie Nyck De Vries only halfway through 2023, replacing him with Daniel Ricciardo.
Lando Norris himself has an ongoing contract with McLaren until 2025 after he signed a new deal including an extension in 2022. But according to Alex Albon the British driver appears to have an “open invitation” to join Red Bull.
“I think if he wants it, yes. But let’s see, because I think no one enjoys to be Max’s team-mates. It’s hard — I have experience with that,” said Albon.
“But if he’s confident in himself, which he should be — from what I hear, the invitation has been open for a while.”
“It’s hard to say now, because just like I have with Williams, you can tell the relationship Lando has with McLaren is very strong, and for now it looks like there’s no reason to change.”
Lando Norris has yet to win his first Grand Prix since his F1 debut in 2019. Since then he has managed to score 11 podiums but was never able to stand at the top of the podium.
Maybe he could achieve this milestone driving for Red Bull? We will have to follow the news and interviews to stay informed about how the discussions about the second seat at the team who just won the constructors world championship continue.
